journal of language contact 12 (2019) 27-51 brill.com/jlc Loan Verb Integration in Michif Anton Antonov inalco-crlao, paris [email protected] Abstract This paper looks at the different ways French (and English) loan verbs are being inte- grated in Michif, a mixed language (the noun system is French, the verbal one is Cree) based upon two dictionaries of the language. The detailed study of the available data has shown that loan verbs are almost exclusively assigned to the vai class, i.e. a class of verbs whose single core argument is animate. This seems natural enough given that the overwhelming majority of them do have an animate core participant in the donor language as well. Still, quite a few of them can be transitive. This is accounted for by claiming that vai is the most ‘neutral’ inflectional class of Cree as far as morphology and argument structure are concerned as verbs in this class can be syntactically both intransitive and transitive. Finally, all of the loan verbs examined have Cree equivalents and so the claim that they were borrowed because of the lack of a corresponding Cree verb in the language is difficult to accept at face value. Keywords loan verbs – valency – transitivity – animacy – direct/inverse – hierarchical agreement – Algonquian – Cree – Michif 1 Introduction This paper deals with French and English loan verbs in Michif, and in particu- lar the ways in which they have been integrated into the almost exclusively Cree (i.e. Algonquian) verbal system of that language. It is especially con- cerned with the ways in which the argument structure of the original verb has been mapped onto the existing valency patterns. © anton antonov, 2019 | doi 10.1163/19552629-01201002 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing CC-BY-NC License at the time of publication. Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 07:58:36AM via free access 28 Antonov Michif (-Cree) is a mixed language, famously unique in that its lexicon and grammar are (almost) neatly made up of two main components with separate sound systems, morphology and syntax: the nominal one (including most np modifiers) is (Canadian) French, while the verbal one is (Plains) Cree (Bakker, 1997: 4). No (significant) simplification in nominal and verbal morphology is to be observed (Bakker, 1997: 9–11), and indeed it has even been said that Michif combines the most difficult parts of French and Cree grammar, respectively, even if this impressionistic claim is difficult to evaluate empirically (Bakker, 1997: 24). The study is based upon a careful examination of the material presented in (Laverdure and Allard, 1983), supplemented at times by (Fleury, 2013) (on which see Section 3).1 The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 offers some terminological pre- liminaries for non-Algonquianists, Section 3 represents the bulk of the article and examines both loan verbs from French (Section 3.1) and loan verbs from English (Section 3.2), as well as some unclear classes (Section 3.3). In both cas- es loan verbs are classified according to their transitivity in the donor language (i.e. intransitive, transitive and ambitransitive). Finally, Section 4 summarizes and discusses the findings and offers a hypothesis as to the reason why almost all loan verbs have been assigned to the vai (intransitive verbs with an animate actor) class. 2 Some Terminological Preliminaries Algonquian languages present multiple challenges to the unprepared. I will try to explain some of these, especially those pertaining to the verbal domain, in a somewhat simplified way in this short introduction (an expanded version of the discussion on Algonquian can be found in Jacques and Antonov (2014)). 2.1 Verb Classes and Animacy Algonquian verbs are traditionally classified into four large classes, according to the transitivity of the verb and the animacy of its S or P argument, respectively. 1 The spelling between these two differs and both are different from standard Plain Cree spell- ing: (Laverdure and Allard, 1983) uses a reasonably consistent English based spelling, where- as (Fleury, 2013) combines English-based spellings and more phonetic spellings. Thus, the endings -ee and -ii, for instance, are phonemically identical. I have decided to reproduce the spellings as they appear in my sources. journal of languageDownloaded contact from Brill.com09/28/2021 12 (2019) 27-51 07:58:36AM via free access <UN> Loan Verb Integration in Michif 29 In the case of a transitive verb, the A is always animate. There is thus a major distinction between animate (na) and inanimate (ni) nouns. It is important to note that the criteria used to ascribe animate or inanimate gender to a given referent do not always coincide with those familiar from European languages: ‘sock(s)’ and ‘rock(s)’, for instance, are animate. We have vii (intransitive verbs with an inanimate actor), vai (intransitive verbs with an animate actor), vti (transitive verbs with an inanimate patient) and vta (transitive verbs with an animate patient). The last two classes also have an animate actor. In fact, there are also several subclasses of ‘deponent’ vai and vti verbs whose syntactic behavior does not match their morphologi- cal makeup (cf. Table 1). These are usually either not specifically signalled or else termed vai-t and vti-i. Here I will call them vaitr and vtiintr, respectively. 2.2 Direct/Inverse and Obviation It is important to observe that in spite of the existence of syntactically transi- tive deponent verbs, the only verbs that index both of their participants as long as they are not third person are the vta (transitive animate) ones. The resulting complex forms reference their participants using S, A, P-neutral af- fixes. This, in turn, calls for the use of a special ‘direction’ marker (traditionally Table 1 Verb classes in Plains Cree Verb Class Transitivity S, A, P [±anim] Cree Meaning vii intransitive S=inan wâpiskâ- ‘be white’ miywâsi- ‘be good’ wâpa- ‘be dawn’ vai intransitive S=anim wâpiskisi- ‘be white’ miywâsisi- ‘be good’ pimipahtâ- ‘run’ vaitr transitive A=anim+P=±anim mêki- ‘give (out) s.o. or sth’ transitive A=anim+P=inan âpacihtâ- s.o. or sth ‘use sth’ vti transitive A=anim+P=inan wâpaht- ‘see sth’ vtiintr intransitive S=anim mâham- ‘canoe downriver’ vta (mono) A=anim+P=anim wâpam- ‘see s.o.’ transitive (di)transitive A=anim(+T=±anim)+R=anim miy- ‘give someone (sth/s.o.)’ journal of language contact 12 (2019) 27-51 Downloaded from Brill.com09/28/2021 07:58:36AM via free access <UN> 30 Antonov called a ‘theme sign’) in order to indicate the ‘direct’ vs. ‘inverse’ direction of the action. The use of one or the other reflects the relative position of the agent and the patient on the following hierarchy (valid for Plains Cree): (1) sap > animate proximate > animate obviative > inanimate If the agent is located higher than the patient the verb shows direct marking, but if it is lower than the verb receives inverse marking.2 Thus, we observe a tripartite distinction between proximate animate, obviative animate and in- animate referents. Obviation is a ubiquitous feature in Algonquian, which is reflected both in verbal and nominal morphology. Its main function is to distinguish two or more third-person participants within a given sentence or stretch of discourse. Thus, in oral narratives, the obviative (obv, -(w)a in Cree) is used to introduce a hitherto unknown participant by contrast with the unmarked form which is called the proximate (prox). There can be at most one proximate partici- pant within a given clause. Later on, the interplay between the two helps the listener to keep track of who does what to whom. Except if s/he is a persistent topic, no participant is inherently tied to a proximate or obviative status solely by virtue of their inherent semantic features. The obviative must also be used on the possessee, and on the verb whose argument the possessee is, whenever the possessor is third-person (cf. ex. 2). (2) eeka la Sandriyeuz o-paapa-wa ekota kaa-ayaa-yit neg art:f:sg Cinderella 3-father-obv there nmlz-be-3obv ‘When Cinderella’s father was not around…’ (Bakker and Fleury, 2007: 38) 2.3 Independent vs. Conjunct Order The inflectional paradigms of the Algonquian verb classes have further been organized in five sets (called ‘orders’) in Proto-Algonquian, of which most modern languages preserve only three, i.e. the Independent, the Conjunct and the Imperative, having discarded the other two, i.e. the Interrogative and the Prohibitive. While the imperative order is self-explanatory (and won’t be dealt with in this paper), the independent (which will be discussed only in passim) and the conjunct roughly correspond to verb forms used in main and subordi- nate clauses, respectively. Examples 3 and 4 illustrate these with the vta verb 2 It is generally considered that the second person outranks the first person (2 > 1) in Algonqui- an languages, but this refers to a distinct hierarchy related to the slot accessibility of person prefixes, not the distribution of direct and inverse forms. journal of languageDownloaded contact from Brill.com09/28/2021 12 (2019) 27-51 07:58:36AM via free access <UN> Loan Verb Integration in Michif 31 wâpam- ‘see’ (for an exhaustive presentation of the forms in Plains Cree for these two orders for all verb classes, cf. Tables 5 and 6. No differences be- tween Plains Cree and Michif (non-loan) verbs have been found in the data available).3 (3) pi môhkâc kîhtwâm kî-wâpam-êw anihi la (vy[ey]) and never again pst-see-3sg 3obv that:anim:obv def:fsg (o[ld]) fâm la, la movez fâm pi sî fiy woman def:fsg def:fsg evil.fsg woman and poss:3sg3pl girl ‘And never again did she see the o[ld woman] woman, the evil woman and her daughters.’ (Bakker and Fleury, 2007: 9–10) (4) ê-wâpam-ât anihi la fâm-a cnj-see-3sg3obv:cnj that:anim:obv def:fsg woman-obv ‘When he saw that woman…’ (Bakker and Fleury, 2007: 37) It is important to stress that wh-clauses, those with focalized constituents or under the scope of (clausal) negation require the use of the conjunct order, so in a sense these are ‘de-subordinated’ clauses.